orest
formed a vast green veil between him and the sun. Some wild peach trees
in early bloom shone in cones of pink against the green wall. Shy little
flowers of delicate purple nestled in the grass, and at his feet the
waters of the brook gleamed in the sunshine in alternate ripples of
silver and gold, while the pebbles shone white on the shallow bottom.

He stood there, straight and strong like a young oak, a figure in
harmony with the wilderness and its lonely grandeur. He seemed to fit
into the scene, to share its colors, and to become its own. The look of
content in his eyes, like that of a forest creature that has found a
lair to suit him, made him part of it. His dress, too, matched the flush
of color around him. The fur cap upon his head had been dyed the green
of the grass. The darker green of the oak leaves was the tint of his
hunting shirt of tanned buckskin, with the long fringe hanging almost to
his knees. It was the tint, too, of the buckskin leggings which rose
above his moccasins of buffalo hide.

But the moccasins and the seams of the leggings were adorned with
countless little Indian beads of red and blue and yellow, giving dashes
of new color to the green of his dress, just as the wild flowers and
peach blossoms and the silver and gold of the brook varied the dominant
green note of the forest. A careless eye would have passed over him, his
figure making no outline against the wall of forest behind him. It was
the effect that he sought, to pass through wood and thicket and across
the green open, making slight mark for the eye.

Henry was not only a lover of the wilderness and its beauty, but he was
also a conscious one. He would often stop a moment to drink in the glory
of a specially fine phase of it, and this was such a moment. Far off a
range of hills showed a faint blue tracery against the sky of deeper
blue. At their foot was a band of silver, the river to which the brook
that splashed before him was hurrying. Everywhere the grass grew rich
and rank, showing the depth and quality of the soil beneath. A hundred
yards away a buffalo grazed as peacefully as if man had never come, and
farther on a herd of deer raised their heads to sniff the southern wind.

It was pleasant to Henry to gaze upon the stretch of meadow before him.
So he stood for a minute or two, looking luxuriously, his rifle resting
across his shoulder, the sun glinting along its long, slender, blue
barrel. Then he knelt down to dri